The push to engineer smaller and smaller microelectronic devices has opened up an increasing portion of the periodic table. While there is a large amount of research on lanthanide, Y and Sc inorganic and organometallic compounds, developing new compounds and exploring reactivity, there has been little progress in improving properties for vapor deposition methods. Lanthanide, Y and Sc metal compounds typically suffer from low volatility and a challenging balance to maintain both chemical stability and high enough reactivity with typical deposition co-reactants.
Typical lanthanum precursors demonstrate very low growth rates using ammonia as a co-reactant at low temperatures with low thermal stability. New lanthanide precursors and processes are needed to improve film growth rates and stability.